In Which May Be Found The Name Of Enjolras' Co-Star
by Ember Nickel
Summary: Death is just the beginning of Enjolras' problems. (Crack.)


Bossuet was killed, Feuilly was killed, Courfeyrac was killed, Grantaire, sitting alone with his wine glass, could only gaze up towards the barricade as he expired.

Enjolras alone was not struck. He teetered once, for a moment, on the parapet, then plummeted from view, even as below him Marius was submerged into the dismal mire that undergirded the mazy streets of the metropolis.

The street was still where the defenders of the revolution lay fallen. For a time one would have seen no movement upon the dark roads, as the guardsmen retreated into the distance to tally their losses and regroup themselves. Then, perhaps, as the first wary citizens had peeked out their windows, from homes now devoid of furniture thrown down to construct the futile roadblocks, one might have seen the far side of the structure, where its leader's lifeless body drooped from the summit. And as if in response to their curiosity, or fear, or mourning, a voice sounded forth from the heavens.

"Can you try that again, but with a little more...emanation?"

Enjolras, who had been expecting something on the order of either oblivion or at least a direct consciousness of the Infinite somewhat unlike what the conventional religious education of his day would lead many to expect, was none too pleased to find himself in the dimness of the barricade, though he was significantly gladder to find his friends all alive and reunited with him. Yet again, the National Guard issued their proclamation of inevitable victory, a prediction Enjolras had to admit seemed somewhat better-founded the second time around. Nevertheless, he felt almost compelled to reply in the same manner; "Let us die facing our foes!"

"Let's not," said Grantaire.

"I suppose," Enjolras grudgingly conceded, "the rest of you can all die facing the opposite direction and it won't make a lot of difference."

"No," said Grantaire, "I mean, let's not _die_."

"If you want to save yourself for another battle, you had your opportunity, but I for one—"

"Go and scare them off! They'll be too frightened to shoot at anyone who's doing...that."

Enjolras glanced down and noted that he was almost beaming, an ethereal light seeming to radiate from the space around him. This was becoming more disconcerting by the minute.

"Has anyone," he asked slowly, "had premonitions? Visions of what might occur in the...very near future of this battle?"

"I've made educated guesses, if that's what you mean," said Feuilly. "But that doesn't matter. We're here till the end."

"I appreciate that, but that's not what I'm after," Enjolras said.

"There's presumably some kind of explanation for this," said Combeferre. "We just have to figure it out."

"We might not have a whole lot of time for that," said Courfeyrac, as a wave of bullets from the attackers came racing over. The light flickered and died, and with it, so did the Friends of the ABC.

"Like that," came the voice, "but don't start glowing until _after_ you're dead."

Enjolras, by no means pleased about the prospect of taking on responsibilities after his death, found himself at the verge of combat once again, and resolved to fight twice as valiantly to postpone the moment when earthly volition would certainly come to an end. Shot by shot, he fired into the unknown, trying not to flinch at the sound of bullets issuing forth from the opposing direction in the fear they might be felling his friends. All around him, the blur of smoke filled the night. Then he felt a bullet pierce him. He toppled forward, never relinquishing his grip on the red banner, as the smoke of battle faded.

For a moment he felt, heard, saw nothing. But then, he felt aware of eyes beyond him, warmed by that persistent light he could barely control. It swelled up around him, and he felt transported beyond the agony of his pain, even as the barricade remained ever-present.

"There you are!" the voice thundered. "Just like that!"

"No," said Enjolras, climbing down and righting himself. He landed with a thud, and noticed that he could still feel the blow of the impact. So he was not beyond sensation, not entirely. "I struggle to find what is right and do it, fighting and dying all on my own. Who are you to order me around, now that I'm dead?"

"Well," the voice stammered, "you _are_ dead. That's precisely the point."

"So what?" Enjolras asked, now pacing along the barricade as the world seemed to pivot underneath him.

"So, you—or your mortal remains, anyway—ought to have a moment of peace. Rest in the light of the heavens and let the world see what has become of you."

"I suppose that's reasonable," Enjolras said.

And that might have been the end of it, if he had not been borne once again to the near side of the edifice, where he saw an entirely natural phenomenon; the corpses of his comrades, cloaked in shadow.

"But what," he went on, "am I supposed to make of _this_?"

"Of what?"

"Are they alive? Surely this betokens that they have survived against impossible odds and will live to carry our cause forward?"

"Unfortunately not."

"Then should not _they_ have the chance to bask in the same light as me?"

"Well—"

"I am no greater a man than they; we are equals in the revolution, sustained by a common cause. Do you think me some tyrant that I would elevate myself above my friends, claiming a right to prominence when they have none?"

"What I mean is—"

"Were their deaths less meaningful for coming in the midst of battle? No less so than mine, surely!"

"Yet you are a leader, even they recognize your importance—"

"Who even knows my name? Feuilly, Courfeyrac...even Grantaire, I suppose, are extolled in song, yet I go anonymous without a second thought! Surely no leader would do this."

"It is the mark of true humility to consider yourself the least of all, when truly you are the leader—"

"I defy you," Enjolras raged, "I will not accept this!" He raised his hand as if to shake a fist at the unseen voice, and as he did, the red flag dropped from his grip. It landed on the ground with a clatter, and in a moment—

He was facing the others, their faces eager for news of the city or for some encouragement to hold fort. For all they knew, he had just returned from his reconnaissance, but the news he had to deliver felt bleaker and bleaker. "Let us not waste lives," he summarized, as he called to mind the silent streets, each door captive to its own terror. "Let all the women and fathers of children go from here."

That couldn't be enough. They would see him as a leader, still, to the last, as someone who had been elsewhere—well, he had—and look up to him. Why, they were reluctant to leave already, even with the arrival of the second "volunteer." He had to say something else.

So, gathering the others for another speech, he attempted to cap it off by appealing to their common fraternity. Perhaps…"Brothers, he who dies here dies in the radiance of the future," he declared, "and we are entering a tomb all flooded with the dawn."

Still they stared up at him as if looking for more inspiration. Well, they could not find it, not from his command alone. Whatever illumination they required they would each need to find within themselves. Surely they all possessed it? They had all chosen to join him, knowing what it would mean.

They battled on, through the dwindling supplies of ammunition, through the fall of little Gavroche, and onward. The guard sounded another warning, and they paid it no mind. And then, one of the bullets from out of the darkness was met with a crash, and a heavy blow, and from behind, a bolt of light.

Enjolras could not see which of his friends had fallen, but he tightened his grip on the flag with a grim smile as the smoke grew thicker. Another crash, another beam. Until he was only a smudge atop the halo-like wall, and then he, too, disappeared.

Soon after he came back into view, the glow around him pitifully dim in comparison to what had shone just before. "No, no," came the voice from above. "This won't do at all!"

"I warned you," said Enjolras, who was beginning to get accustomed to being dead. "My brothers will share my fate, for good or ill."

"You are very obstinate about this."

"I've faced death and found it not burdensome. Do you think you can intimidate me?"

"Hmm," said the voice. "I think I have a better idea..."

Though full of excitable voices, the cafe hardly felt crowded. Spacious, really, compared with what might be. Yet Enjolras took no notice of Marius' stumbling entry nor his grand pronouncements of love. Instead, he bent over a map of the city with his closest allies, wondering which other chokepoints had fallen—would fall?—when, which might last, where the people could rally. Was Lamarque's death truly the best occasion to gather the people to arms? Had they waited too long? Should they have held out longer?

The map was snatched away from below him, and reluctantly, he turned his attention to Marius and the others. "Have you asked of yourselves what's the price you might pay?" he wondered, and their faces, though rapt, did not contain the spark of recognition that might signify they had truly seen what lay ahead the way he had. "The colors of the world are changing day by day."

And he reached for a tablecloth that could serve, in its manner, as a rudimentary flag. "Red—"

"Red indeed!" boomed the voice from beyond the rooftops. "You hold the symbol of the revolution, now. Mind it well!"

"What of it?" said Enjolras. "It might as well be any of my friends here who does the same. Or Monsieur Mabeuf, or small Gavroche, or any passer-by."

"Indeed it might! But today, it is you. And as long as your friends follow you, they seem to be content with this state of affairs."

Enjolras glanced around the cafe. Nobody else seemed to be aware of the voice. Given a chance to get a word in edgewise, Marius had gone back to regaling the others with details of his apparition, while Laigle and Courfeyrac egged him on for details. Combeferre was engaged in a very halfhearted attempt to regain possession of the map. "I suppose," said Enjolras.

"Then as long as your fight persists, treat the flag with honor, for it is a living token of the cause for which you struggle!"

"I would never do anything less!" Enjolras vowed.

"Very good! Then I must ask only one more thing of you."

"If it is in my power."

"There may come a time when you, like your fellow citizens gathered in this effort, may be called upon to give your life in its name. You and they may both go unremembered, for a time, your names blurred together in history."

"I would not hope to be set above them in death as in life," Enjolras said guardedly.

"But this flag you bear—it may be cut down, for a time, only to return in glory. As one that has lived and sacrificed, it must be given an interval to shed its light over all the world. Do you not agree?"

"The flag itself? How can such an emblem be slain?"

"In the same way people themselves are killed—not eternally, as you ought to know, but only to return at a more proper time."

"I suppose," Enjolras said dubiously.

"Great. Take five."

Before he could ask what was going on, he felt his friends' gaze on him again, and the urge to expound on the symbolism of the color black. And then one thing led to another, and he found himself marching towards the barricade once more.

They all knew the risks; he'd been aware of those from the beginning. The likelihood of death did not faze him, and with the ebbing wave of growth, the feeling it could still inspire that something was being built, something to endure, how could he retreat? So much movement all around him cried out for making a change that it felt futile to demand a _different_ change be made.

And then the attacks began, shot by shot echoing through the darkness, until Enjolras, too, felt himself falling. But falling forward, into the future, and then encompassed by a light that was not his own.


End file.
